Texas Pol Still Isn't Satisfied on Obama Birthplace

State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, has checked out the birth certificate President Barack Obama released this morning — and he's not satisfied.

GOP leaders like U.S. House Speaker John Boehner may believe the matter "has long been a settled issue," as he said today in a statement. But Berman, who has raised persistent questions about Obama's birthplace, said he has many more questions and that it will take "someone like a Donald Trump" to really determine whether the president has "pulled the greatest swindle, the greatest hoax, in the history of the United States."

Berman, who has filed a "birther" bill this session that would force future presidential and vice presidential candidates to show their birth certificate in order to get on the Texas ballot, said he's got several key questions with Obama's birth certificate: Why did it take the president so long, amid a conservative firestorm, to release it? Why does it look "brand new," he said, when it's supposed to be five decades old? Why doesn't the hospital listed on the birth certificate have a "plaque on the door" commemorating Obama's birth there? And has anyone checked with the delivery room doctor listed on the birth certificate (whose name Berman says is curiously difficult to make out)?

"I'm hopeful that it's a good birth certificate," Berman said, "and that's all I can say."

Hawaii's registrar certified the newly released photocopy of Obama's long form birth certificate, which provides greater detail than the shorter version that is the state's official certification of birth and was released by the Obama campaign in the 2008 presidential race. Multiple media investigations have determined that Obama was born in Hawaii, and state officials there, both Republican and Democratic, have attested to it repeatedly.

But it's not enough for Berman, who has famously declared the "YouTubes are infallible." He said he's now seen two birth certificates: the Hawaiian one released by Obama this morning, and one he said indicates Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya. And he claims the hospital Obama lists on his birth certificate — in fact, all hospitals in Honolulu — have denied the president was born there.

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